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WRC 2 in Germany: Kopecký storms to victory

Jan Kopecký completed a remarkable recovery to take WRC 2 victory and the championship lead at ADAC Rallye Deutschland on sunday afternoon.

Starting the final leg in third, after wheel damage on Saturday dropped him to eighth, he won all three of Sunday's stages to beat his Skoda Motorsport team-mate Kalle Rovanperä by 3.8sec.

The Fabia R5 driver said: "I have to say this was a really big weekend, thanks to the team and the fans and everyone. We didn't give up and finally it paid off."

His fourth victory of the year continued his 100 per cent winning record and moved him top of the drivers' standings - seven points ahead of team-mate Pontus Tidemand.

Rovanperä had no answer to Kopecký's pace but had enough time in hand over Fabio Andolfi in third to finish in the runner-up spot on his first asphalt rally in the WRC's major support class.

Andolfi made it an all Skoda-podium and conceded that he didn't have the pace to match the leading duo on the final leg.

Fourth went to Fabian Kreim. The German champion took time out of Kajetan Kajetanowicz on every stage and a third-fastest time on the Live TV Power Stage allowed him to jump ahead by 3.5sec.

Lukasz Pieniazek finished 1m 26.0sec behind Kajetanowicz in sixth in his Fabia, having overhauled Nicolas Ciamin on the final stage to end with an advantage of 1.7sec over the Hyundai i20 driver.

Sunday's only retirement was Umberto Scandola. He was ninth after the morning's opening test but stopped with a turbo issue.

Zdroj: wrc.com